A supportive, joyful space to write your next pages, surround yourself with other writers, and gain valuable coaching.
A Room of one's own
A writing retreat for women in provence
September 27th - October 3rd, 2026
Something is waiting to be written, and you already know what it is.
It wakes you at 3 a.m. with a scene fully formed, then evaporates by morning. It has been politely accumulating in the margins of a full life — the novel, the essays, the memoir — waiting for a week where it finally gets to be the whole point. Maybe you have started it four times, maybe zero. But you can feel the pressure of it, that low-grade hum of the unwritten thing.
In all my decades of writing coaching clients, the quality of the writing or the merits of the story ideas aren’t usually the problem. The biggest problem seems to be actually committing and sitting down to write. You want it to pour out of you, but you’ve only given it time to trickle in fits and starts. Eventually your momentum and confidence stalls, sometimes for months or even years.
In 1929, Virginia Woolf wrote that a woman needs a room of her own in order to write. When I first read that, I thought she meant literal space, like a desk and a door and a stretch of quiet.
But after working with writers for decades, I’ve come to think she meant something more fragile than square footage. She meant freedom from interruption — not only by other people, but by the internalized voices that question whether you should be taking up this much time and space for your writing in the first place.
Most women I know have a room. They have carved one out. A home office. A kitchen table claimed for an hour. A laptop balanced at the edge of the bed. And yet the writing still happens in fragments. Between errands. After everyone, including the pets, are fed. In the small leftover corners of a very competent life.
The room exists, but it is permeable. The door never quite shuts. What we’re doing in Provence is closing it.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story within you.”
— Maya Angelou
Mornings start with guided writing sessions, so you don’t have to wrestle yourself into starting. I guide you into the work — sometimes through a prompt or a question that unlocks something you’ve been circling for years. We will talk about craft and ways to generate strong material. We will also talk about publishing in a way that removes both fantasy and dread. And I will share all my hacks and tricks for overcoming the demons of doubt (all writers have them, even the most accomplished), and making your writing life more generative and sustainable once you return home.
Your week of writing in autumnal Provence
By lunch, you will have pages that didn’t exist at breakfast. From this launchpad, afternoons are your supportive, focused time to work. You’ll have a private room and you can close the door and dive in.
Of course, this is still autumn in the south of France. If you’d prefer to do this work over a glass of wine at the local cafe, meander the town outlining only in your mind, or share revisions over espresso with a new friend, this time belongs to however you’d like to use it.
Sheet masks and loungewear are welcome. Reading a novel in the afternoon sun on a Tuesday is not only permitted but encouraged. (Quality reading time counts as writing.) And yes, there is a pool with enough lounge chairs.
Evenings are around a long table at a sprawling villa in the heart of Provence with your private chef who delights in nourishing the writer both body and soul.
Bottom line: This retreat is a nurturing place for you and your creative process, so you can go home with work you’re proud of and a renewed connection with yourself and your creativity.
A volume of work that banishes inertia and is aligned with your true voice and writing ambitions, a new community of women cheering you on, and valuable time with a writing coach who will help you hone your ideas
YOU WILL LEAVE WITH:
WHO THIS IS FOR
Strong women, vulnerable writers.
This retreat is for women and those who identify as women, at any stage of their writing life — published or pre-publication, working on a novel or a memoir or a collection of essays or something that does not have a name yet. Genre is irrelevant. What matters is that you take the writing seriously, but not yourself.
We are not vetting for writing skill. We are looking for generosity. For the capacity to support other women in their work without making it about you. For the ability to navigate your emotional process with some grace (writing often excavates vulnerable things — that is the point). This is for a woman who travels through a foreign country with curiosity and openness.. A sense of humor about yourself is essentially mandatory.
This retreat is for women and those who identify as women, at any stage of their writing life — published or pre-publication, working on a novel or a memoir or a collection of essays or something that does not have a name yet. Genre is irrelevant. What matters is that you take the writing seriously, but not yourself.
We are not vetting for writing skill. We are looking for generosity. For the capacity to support other women in their work without making it about you. For the ability to navigate your emotional process with some grace (writing often excavates vulnerable things — that is the point). This is for a woman who travels through a foreign country with curiosity and openness.. A sense of humor about yourself is essentially mandatory.
A note on the right fit for this group:
This is a held space, and it only functions if everyone in it is genuinely committed to holding it. There will be no critical feedback here — no workshopping, no red pens, no one waiting to tell you what your draft needs to fix. If you need critique to feel like the work is making progress, this is the wrong week, and we would genuinely rather you know that now. And if you have ever felt tempted to shrink someone else’s creative win, this gathering of generous writers will not feel comfortable. This is for supportive women who are ready to focus deeply, as well as cheer each other (and themselves) on.
THE ACCOMMODATIONS
→ Six nights at the sprawling villa La Bastide Lavande, a private property in the heart of Provence, set among lavender fields with the particular quality of light that made painters move here and never leave.
→ All rooms are en suite, solo guests only.
→ A shared table, a private room. The perfect balance to connect with other writers while still having space for yourself to produce great work.
→ All rooms are en suite, solo guests only.
→ A shared table, a private room. The perfect balance to connect with other writers while still having space for yourself to produce great work.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
The writing
→ Five mornings of guided generative sessions — free writes, scene work, exercises that produce real material, fast.
→ Five afternoons of open, supported writing time — unstructured and unhurried, with Gail present throughout.
→ One private hour of writing coaching with Gail, one-on-one, to work through whatever is stuck or needs unlocking.
→ Optional sharing in a curiosity-led environment — no critique, no red pens. Only what moved us and what we want more of.
→ Five afternoons of open, supported writing time — unstructured and unhurried, with Gail present throughout.
→ One private hour of writing coaching with Gail, one-on-one, to work through whatever is stuck or needs unlocking.
→ Optional sharing in a curiosity-led environment — no critique, no red pens. Only what moved us and what we want more of.
The community
→ All meals: six dinners, five lunches, six breakfasts, snacks throughout, created thoughtfully by our in-house chef, Charis Jones of Feastable.
→ Local wine at dinner, poured with genuine pleasure and genuine moderation. Hemingway’s approach to the relationship between drinking and writing is not a model we endorse, but a good glass of something from the region is another matter entirely.
→ Daily yoga classes from our in-house teacher, Michelle Chambers of Pulse Yoga. Additional morning meditations will be sprinkled throughout the week.
→ Optional shuttle transfer for arrivals and departures, priced separately at approximately $150.
→ Local wine at dinner, poured with genuine pleasure and genuine moderation. Hemingway’s approach to the relationship between drinking and writing is not a model we endorse, but a good glass of something from the region is another matter entirely.
→ Daily yoga classes from our in-house teacher, Michelle Chambers of Pulse Yoga. Additional morning meditations will be sprinkled throughout the week.
→ Optional shuttle transfer for arrivals and departures, priced separately at approximately $150.
Gail Hudson is a NY Times bestselling author and writing coach who has spent decades working with writers on the things that matter: getting the writing done, making it sing, and sharing it with the world, if publication is their end goal. She built this retreat around the belief that the right conditions — the right people, the right place, the right balance of structure and freedom — can unlock months of work in a single week.
She will be present throughout, not managing logistics from a distance, but in the room writing alongside you and available for the hour of private coaching that is yours alone.
She will be present throughout, not managing logistics from a distance, but in the room writing alongside you and available for the hour of private coaching that is yours alone.
